The Collected Stories, The Legend of Drizzt (forgotten realms) Read online

  This was the end for him. He wondered if any of his old friends remained-Drizzt, possibly, and perhaps even Bruenor. He was contented and ready to pass on, though not particularly thrilled that he would die in his bed.

  Or would he?

  A commotion outside the tent stirred him from his thoughts. He heard the words of two of his companions, and one of those words, “yeti,” stirred something deep and profound in Wulfgar. His fever forgotten, he rolled off the side of his furs and forced himself to his feet.

  He stumbled outside and, upon hearing the news, his limbs grew strong once more. Standing up straight, he hoisted Aegis-fang, his legendary warhammer.

  “Stay true to our course,” he instructed the group gathered around him, all of whom were stunned that he had managed to get out of bed. “Break camp, collect our supplies, and begin the march to the northwest.”

  “We’ll not leave Canaufa’s party out there!” one man complained.

  “No,” Wulfgar agreed with a wry grin, “we’ll not. By my promise, we’ll not.”

  Some of the hunters smiled back at him, some nodded, but more than one shook his head doubtfully.

  “This you owe to me, I decree,” Wulfgar said. “In this, defer to me, this last time.”

  How were they to argue? The man was a god among them, the greatest warrior the tribes of Icewind Dale had ever known.

  On shaky old legs, Wulfgar climbed the slick and slippery stones. Not once did he glance back to the now-distant encampment that was being broken down even then. His great strides carried him fast and far, and he did not slow, could not slow, knowing that members of his clan were in trouble.

  Yetis, Wulfgar confirmed as soon as he reached the rocky spur and heard the growls and calls beyond. At the sound, he was transformed once more, as if a second infusion of energy had come into him, stealing away ever more years from his aged frame. “Tempus,” he said under his breath, his voice not quite as thick with phlegm. “Give me strength this day.”

  Climbing the stones quickly, he came over the apex of the spur and saw the fight in plain view below him. He winced at the sight of a fellow tribesman lying in his own blood, at another swarmed by three of the large and shaggy bearlike beasts, and at the pair of women, back to back, stabbing with their spears to fend off several of the circling brutes.

  Wulfgar pulled himself up to his full height, still more than six and a half feet. “Tempus!” he roared into the northern wind, and he grunted hard as he flexed his muscles, launching his magical warhammer at the nearest yeti.

  It was dead before it landed.

  Down leaped Wulfgar, no more the old man but seeming like the warrior who had become a hero throughout the dale and across the breadth of the northern realms. Roaring to his god, he lifted his hand and caught the magically returned hammer, the gift of a dwarf father whom he had not seen in more than five decades.

  As if drawing strength from the magic of that weapon, he crashed into the nearest group of beasts, pushing them away with hand and hammer, chopping them down with short but devastating strikes. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted one of the women in trouble, and despite his own predicament, the old warrior launched his warhammer.

  His throw was true, he saw in the brief moment before a yeti took advantage of his vulnerability. Leaping upon him, the yeti’s long and hooked claws raked at his abdomen.

  Wulfgar grabbed the beast’s hair and yanked its head back so violently he heard the snap of neck bones. Slugging the shaggy beast hard under the chin, he threw it aside, then drove his elbow out the other way, smashing the jaw of another approaching yeti. His hammer returned to his hand as the beast staggered backward, just far enough for Wulfgar to chop his hammer across, crushing its skull.

  “Tempus!” he roared, and on he came, thrashing wildly, throwing every ounce of energy in his old and battered frame behind every sweeping swing. A yeti leaped upon him from behind, and few men could have held their footing.

  But Wulfgar, who had passed his one-hundredth birthday, remained such a man.

  He felt the agony as the beast bit down on his collar, looping one claw around and hooking it in the gash already pouring blood from his abdomen. Wulfgar spun and reached back to punch at the beast, or to grab it and try to tug its claws free.

  But he could not. With the beast on his back, it took him many strides to get near a large rock, where he swung around and threw himself backward. Again and again, he slammed the yeti into the stone, and during one crash, yet another beast leaped on him from in front, clawing and biting.

  And a third hit him, driving the pile sidelong, and Wulfgar down to one knee.

  Across the way, a woman screamed.

  With a cry to his god that shook the very stones of Icewind Dale, stubborn Wulfgar lifted himself to his feet, hoisted the large yetis up from the ground, and threw his arms wide with such force that all three of the monsters were flung away. Before they could come back at him, he hit them-one, two, three-with mighty Aegis-fang. His long gray hair and beard flying in the wind, Wulfgar charged ahead.

  He launched his warhammer, smashing yet another yeti aside a heartbeat before it would have bitten out the remaining woman’s throat, as she was held vulnerable by the last of the beasts.

  Not even waiting for his warhammer, Wulfgar threw himself into that last monster, lifting it, driving it, wedging himself between the yeti and the warrior woman to break its grasp. They tumbled aside in a heap, away from the woman, the yeti clawing, Wulfgar punching, both biting.

  Finally Wulfgar managed to cup the beast’s chin, his other hand grabbing at the thick mane. He twisted and tugged, turning the head sidelong, and kept driving, ignoring the agony as the yeti got its clawed hand into his gut, right through the wound torn by two of its companions.

  Wulfgar reversed direction, then tugged back with sudden ferocity, and at last the beast’s neck broke.

  Wulfgar managed to shove the heavy creature aside and wriggle out from under it. Rolling to his knees, he caught his warhammer and tried to rise, but when he saw that the fight had ended, every yeti dead or fleeing, all strength left him. He hoped he had saved more than just the one woman, hoped that some of the five who lay around her would not succumb to their wounds.

  Then he was on his back, staring up at the falling snow and the steel gray sky. An image appeared over him, that of Brayleen, the warrior woman, and beside her was Canaufa, her fighting partner, helping a young and strong man.

  Wulfgar smiled.

  “Elder Wulfgar, rest easy,” Brayleen said as comfortingly as she could manage. “We’ll get you home!”

  She turned to the other two survivors, but Wulfgar knew the truth of it, knew at long last that his road had reached its inevitable end. He caught her by the wrist and would not let her continue. When she looked at him curiously, his contented smile answered all of her questions.

  “See to the others, if any are alive,” he whispered, each word coming hard as the ravages of his injuries and his illness gained the upper hand.

  “They are dead, all three dead,” she said.

  “Then back to the camp, all of you,” he instructed.

  “Elder Wulfgar,” she whispered, holding back tears.

  “Cry for the others,” he said, his voice steady and serene, and indeed, a great calm had come over him.

  He felt very conscious of the belief that he was writing the ending of his tale, right then, right there, and he took great comfort in knowing that it was a life well lived.

  “Your cairn will be the greatest ever built in the dale,” the man, Ilfgol, promised, and he, too, could not hold back his tears, his eyes moist, his cheeks wet.

  Wulfgar considered the snow-there would be a great blizzard that day-and knew that the pyre would be symbolic only. For like so many of his fellows, he would be lost to the white emptiness of Icewind Dale’s merciless winter.

  With his fast-dissipating strength, he lifted Aegis-fang toward Brayleen. “Not the beasts nor goblins of the dale will
have this,” he said. “Not the folk of Ten-Towns, not the dwarves from whence it came. It is for the tribe, for the warrior most worthy.”

  “For Brayleen, then,” said Ilfgol, and Canaufa agreed.

  But Brayleen deferred strongly. “For Bruenorson,” she assured Wulfgar, and the large hero smiled at that welcomed promise.

  Each of the three took turns clasping Wulfgar’s hand, then each bent low to kiss him and to offer their thanks for his gallant rescue.

  Then they were gone-it was the way of Icewind Dale-and Wulfgar let his ravaged body rest easy, inviting death to take him.

  It came heralded by music, to his pleasant surprise, and the song was sweet and inviting. He didn’t know if it was actually his corporeal body or his departing spirit, but for some reason he did not understand, he was crawling then, through the mud and snow. He didn’t feel the cold and didn’t hear the wind.

  Just the song, calling to him, beckoning him forward, though he knew not where he was nor where he was going.

  Nor did he know how long he had crawled, just that at last the darkness was closing in. Defiantly, the old barbarian regained his feet, stood tall, and threw his arms up high. He meant to call out to his god to take him and be done with it, but before he shouted, he noted a most curious sight before him: a thick forest, in springtime bloom, and so shockingly out of place in the Icewind Dale winter.

  Something flew out at him, striking him in the chest. He was quick enough to catch it before it fell to the ground, although the movement sent him back to his knees, his strength failing.

  Trembling fingers brought the item up before him: a carving of bone, of a woman with a bow.

  Wulfgar’s thoughts drifted back across the years as he stared at the scrimshaw, its depiction so reminiscent of one he had once known, and the artistry of the carving so typical of the work of another he had once known.

  His fingers failed him and the scrimshaw fell to the ground, and Wulfgar descended to all fours. Stubbornly, he crawled. Beyond the limit of his remaining, waning strength, he crawled, toward the forest and the music, into the forest and the music, until at last he collapsed.

  In the darkness, the music remained and Wulfgar enjoyed its sweet notes, and he hoped that he could listen to it for eternity.

  He opened his eyes some time later-he knew not how long he had lain in the snow.

  “The whole of the season?” he asked aloud, for the air was warm around him, and the scent of flowers filled the air.

  His knees did not hurt. His abdomen had repaired. His breath came strong and clear.

  Confused, Wulfgar pulled himself up to his knees, and before he lifted his eyes, he heard a voice from long, long ago.

  “Well met, old friend,” it said, he said, Regis of Lonelywood said.

  Wulfgar froze in place, then jumped to his feet in shock as he saw that it was indeed Regis before him, standing on a path that wound between beds of tended flowers, a small and still pond off to the side. Light snow coated the flora, but it was hardly wintry.

  Wulfgar stood tall, taller than he had in decades, and felt strong again, full of energy and without pain in joints that had known the sting of age for so many years.

  He wanted to ask a thousand questions, but none came forth, and he wound up just shaking his head in stunned disbelief.

  Then he nearly fell over, for across the small pond, she appeared.

  Catti-brie. The woman he had loved in his long-ago youth, and she appeared exactly as she had looked those decades before, a teenage girl, or early twenties, perhaps.

  “Impossible,” the barbarian whispered, and he found himself moving her way as if compelled by magic. His strides increased as the woman, singing still, spun away and melted into the forest. As soon as she was out of his sight, Wulfgar started to run, splashing along the edge of the pond.

  “Wulfgar!” Regis yelled, so uncharacteristically forcefully that the barbarian stopped and spun back around.

  Almost back around, for as he turned, he caught his own reflection, and there he stopped and stared until the water calmed, until he saw himself more clearly, his thick and long blond hair, his light and thin beard.

  Blond hair, not white. Thick hair, not thinned by the passage of a century. The hair of a young man.

  Panic hit him and he glanced all around.

  For he was dead. He had to be dead.

  But these were not the halls of Tempus.

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